Advent 2022: Tuesday, December 6
December 11, 2022
Hope
Hope is a choice, based on the knowledge of God’s promises to us. When we believe and trust that God keeps his promises, we can make the choice of hope in even the most difficult circumstances. Before Christ was born, the people of Israel looked forward to the birth of the Messiah. Even though it had been hundreds of years ago that God had made this promise, many Israelites still clung to the hope that God would come to earth and redeem humanity.
Today, hope is possible because Christ was born, suffered, died, and rose again. Death no longer has power over us, because we can see the existence of an afterlife in Christ’s resurrection. This hope of eternal life in turn impacts our everyday lives because we now have an eternal focus, a Kingdom mindset. We no longer view the things of this world the same way. We can see through the incredible pain of this life to the future God has promised us. It is this hope, even through the darkest of times, that shines out to the world and sets us apart – that no matter how bad the circumstances, that we have hope that God will work all things for good.
Lelan Eberly, student ministries